Instructors Share Insider Tips for Helping Salesforce Concepts Stick

The world of learning looks a lot different than it did a few years ago. In-person classroom learning, with peers and instructors all together in one physical space, is now rare. Instead, teachers and students are adapting to a different style of learning and finding new ways to connect with each other in a global model.

A new world for learning

Teachers have experimented with every kind of method to help their students learn. Mini Zoom sessions or hangouts with smaller groups, digital office hours for homework help, personalized online tutoring sessions, and even fun custom video backgrounds to get and keep their students’ attention—they’re trying it all!

We can say exactly the same for our fantastic, imaginative team here at Trailhead Academy.

Trailhead Academy empowers businesses to develop expertise across their organization with expert-led learning and credentials that build and validate Salesforce skills. And our amazing instructors have continued to deliver expert-led classes to a global audience, in more than 13 languages. We have classes available for every Salesforce cloud, role, and level.

Our Trailblazers have never been more eager to skill up and build their expertise so they can adapt to a quickly changing and ever-more-digital world. And they can do this by using tools like Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, and attending expert-led virtual classes, Trailblazer Bootcamps, and Trailhead Virtual Bootcamps for admins, app builders, and developers.

Learn how our instructors are adapting

The whole world has had a crash course in virtual learning. Something many of us would have assumed to be impossible on a large scale is now commonplace. Educators have learned to embrace and adapt to this change by finding new, creative ways to engage with their students.

They bring fun, personalized elements to their virtual classes, and they continue to use songs, mnemonics, analogies, and rhymes in their lessons. These are proven methods to really drive a concept home or to make a particular topic stick with a learner.

And that’s the secret to really helping people learn: leveraging all kinds of memory tricks that help the brain connect with everyday concepts like grammar, mathematics, and history.

Here are stories from a few of our awesome Salesforce Certified Instructors, who share how they make learning fun and help Salesforce concepts stick.

Hum along to these helpful tunes

His Billboard Hot 100 aspirations are still on hold, but one of our Principal Instructors, Brian, has gotten some street cred for his five (yes, five!) original Salesforce raps.

Catchy tunes like this help users pick up quickly on Salesforce concepts. And in this case, getting a song stuck in your head is a good thing, as you’ll hopefully be humming the tune as you blaze through your Salesforce certification exam.

Memory-boosting mnemonics

1. Discover your VESTeD privileges

Data security and record access in Salesforce are pretty simple. There are just two types of records: those you own and those you don’t. Can’t get simpler than that!

Owners of records have VESTeD privileges to them. They’re able to View, Edit, Share, Transfer, and Delete that record. With records you don’t own, access is defined by other features, such as organization-wide defaults, Role Hierarchy, Sharing Rules, Teams, and Manual Sharing.

2. We need to TACO-bout it

With teams, you can create “bucket” groups of people who work together in order to achieve a shared goal, whether that goal is quickly resolving a customer issue or managing an important customer account.

With so many types of teams to keep track of, just remember to TACO-bout it: Teams, Account, Case, Opportunity.

3. Are you keeping it C-C-CLASsy?

You can easily import up to 50,000 records at a time with the Data Import Wizard, but it can be hard to remember which objects you can import to.

Remember this by keeping things C-C-CLASsy (pronounced C C Class): Contacts, Campaign Members, Custom, Leads, Accounts, Solutions.

Develop relatable analogies

Design a music festival around Login Hours, IP Ranges, and Account Verification

Your ticket to a music festival tells you what days you have access and what time you’re allowed to be there (Login Hours). It also tells you which gate you need to use for entry—the blue gate, the green gate, etc. Those are your IP Ranges.

In this analogy, you walk up to a gate at a music festival, ticket in hand.

• Gate security checks your ticket and makes sure that a) you’re entering through the right gate, and b) your ticket says you can be there at that time.
• When a user tries to log in, Salesforce does something similar; the system checks to see if there are any IP Ranges (the gates from this analogy) on the profile and, if so, are they within them. Salesforce also checks to see if there are any Login Hours (festival days and times) and if they are within them.
• If the person trying to gain access is within the restrictions for both items, then they get in—and that happy festival feeling begins!
• The same analogy can also be applied to Account Verification—showing your ticket every time you enter the same festival would be annoying, right?
• Once you enter a particular festival gate and show a valid ticket (identify verification), you get a wristband, and that means you don’t have to stop every time you enter that gate to show your ticket again.

The Salesforce method is similar. If you’re trying to access Salesforce for the first time with a new browser or device, you’ll need to get verified, usually with an email. Then, a cookie is placed in that device’s browser, meaning you don’t have to repeat the verification process over and over when using the same device/browser combination. A cookie in your browser = wristband at the festival.

Your SAM learning tools—Songs, Analogies, and Mnemonics

This was a lot of knowledge in a little bit of time, all brought to you by the people who know Salesforce best—our Salesforce Certified Instructors.

We know you’re still hungry for more amazing tips like these, and if you’re looking for the right place to ask our experts the questions you’ve been struggling with the most, look no further!

If you or your teams have ever experienced one of our expert-led classes, you know it’s not your run-of-the-mill ‘sit in a class and learn’ type of environment. Our instructors pull out all the stops to make learning Salesforce fun and engaging.

Trailhead Virtual Bootcamps offer a 30-day, prescriptive, outcome-based learning journey where you learn directly from Salesforce Certified Instructors through live sessions, on-demand recordings, and office hours.

And with Trailblazer Bootcamps (launching in cities around the world, including Washington, D.C.), your teams can build Salesforce expertise and accelerate their path to certification. A fantastic combination of expert-led learning and guidance, the fun of Dreamforce, the connection of a Community meet-up, and multiple chances to study and sit for a certification exam, Trailblazer Bootcamps are another great way to skill up and certify your teams.

So get registered now for one of our virtual, expert-led classes, Trailhead Virtual Bootcamps, or attend a Trailblazer Bootcamp near you (Washington D.C. coming soon) and get ready to learn how to have the vital Salesforce concepts stick in fun, new ways!